INASP’s grants support institutions to raise awareness of Open Access in the global South

INASP has awarded Open Access Week grants to raise awareness of open access opportunities for researchers in Cuba, El Salvador, Ghana, Hondurus, Kenya, Nepal, Nigeria, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. This year a total of 10 institutions have been awarded a grant of $500 each to support their Open Access Week (23-29 October 2017) plans. As in previous years, the Open Access Week competition is jointly sponsored by UNESCO and INASP.

INASP received many high-quality entries and has awarded grants to those institutions with innovative ideas and plans to share lessons learned, build on and incorporate learning from previous Open Access Week activities.

“We would like to congratulate all the grant winners of this year. We have seen a keen interest in our annual INASP/UNESCO Open Access week grants as in previous years, which is a testament to the impact a relatively small amount of money can have on the promotion of access to scholarly information,” says Mai Skovgaard, Programme Officer at INASP.

“These grants help university libraries to demonstrate to their students, researchers and local community the range of information that is available to them online and can help them in their studies and subsequent professional carriers,” adds Mai.

Grant recipients will be undertaking the following activities during Open Access week. These grants have been awarded to the following institutions which demonstrated an understanding of and commitment to Open Access resources.

Universidad Central “Marta Abreu” de Las Villas, Cuba is holding a number of workshops, conferences and training sessions aimed at students, professors and researchers. They will also involve publishers from a range of Cuban universities in their activities.

Universidad Don Bosco, El Salvador, is planning to promote their institutional repository through an information campaign using printed and digital materials. The week will culminate in a conference on Open Access and repositories on 27 October.

CSIR-Institute for Scientific and Technological Information, Ghana, is organizing visits to meet with scientists in seven of their southern sector institutes to raise their awareness of Open Access in general and the Open Access policy adopted by CSIR-INSTI. The aim is to encourage the scientists to publish in as well as use research from Open Access journals.

Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Honduras, Hondurus, is launching two products that they have developed using open source software which will be accompanied by workshops, talks and a programme on the university channel about the importance of Open Access.

Egerton University (Nairobi City Campus), Kenya, plans for a range of activities such as trainings, campus wide classroom tour and talk, a radio talk as well as the preparation of a manual on how to use Open Access resources. These activities are aimed at sensitizing their faculty and students on the value of open access and the institutional repository.

BPKIHS Alumuni Association, B.P. Koirala Institute of Health Sciences, Nepal is holding a one day symposium for MBBS and BDS graduates who are currently doing medical internships on the benefits of Open Access and its potential for increasing understanding and collaboration across borders and institutions.

Redeemer’s University, Nigeria is foccussing on anadvocacy seminar on the role of Open Access and data in academia. There will also be a pre-programme activity targeted at undergraduate students on the day before the advocacy seminar.

St. Augustine University of Tanzania, Tanzania will arrange for researchers to meet authors who have published in the institutional repository, a panel discussion and workshop on Open Access along with visits made by the library staff directly to users in their offices, learning rooms and study group centres in order to familiarise them with Open Access resources and how to use these.

University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania will be promoting access to and the use of their institutional repository and Open Access resources. Their activities include workshops, presentations and exhibitions as well as online training in information literacy using Moodle.

Lupane State University, Zimbabwe is carrying out a discursive workshop where lectures will give testimonies on publishing in Open Access journals and the institutional repository and students will give testimonies on Open Access publications in remote areas. There will also be a presentation on the Think Check Submit principles which highlights crucial factors to consider when publishing Open Access.
Follow #OAWeek and @INASPinfo to see activities of these institutions during Open Access Week.

About INASP

Founded in 1992, INASP is an international development organization working with a global network of partners in Africa, Latin America and Asia. In line with the vision of research and knowledge at the heart of development, INASP works to support individuals and institutions to produce, share and use research and knowledge, which can transform lives.

INASP’s approaches are based on the core pillars of capacity development, convening, influencing and working in partnership. INASP promotes equity by actively addressing the needs of both men and women across all our work and addressing issues of power within the research and knowledge system. INASP has projects in 28 countries, supporting all aspects of research and knowledge systems, from facilitating the provision of information to researchers to helping parliamentarians and civil servants to use research and evidence in policy making.

INASP is grateful to UNESCO for support with the annual Open Access Week grants.

About Open Access Week 2017

Open Access Week is an opportunity for the academic and research community to continue to learn about the potential benefits of Open Access, to share what they’ve learned with colleagues, and to help inspire wider participation in helping to make Open Access a new norm in scholarship and research.